


Returning

by Phoenixflames12



Category: Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Book 6: A Breath of Snow and Ashes, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 19:55:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9841487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenixflames12/pseuds/Phoenixflames12
Summary: Jamie attempts to comfort Claire after her rescue and comes to terms with demons that he had thought were long buried.





	

Returning

The night is cool, a faint breeze pouring through the window as he lies awake, drifting between consciousness and oblivion. The wind had risen as he had taken her to bed, a squall rising from the south west, the smoored fire spouting angrily against the rattle of the shutters, a desperate cry rising from the windows as he had pressed her body to him and borne her weight upstairs. It still rose now, but calmer, safer, barricaded by wood and stone and glass.

 

Her hand is still gripped in his, the weight of her; that weight that he has yearned and hungered for, pressed against him but he knows that she does not sleep. She is too stiff for that, her back arched against him, her right hand thrown back over her to grip his own, as if frightened that if she lets go he will be lost to her forever.

 

He holds on tightly too, feeling the weight of his hands caress her, remember her. Reassure himself that she is here; broken perhaps and shaking but here and with him and as whole as she can be.

 

_A dhia!_

 

_I am sorry, mo nighean don._

_Sorry, for so many things, for leaving ye… For letting them…_

_And finding ye perhaps… Or letting ye find me and fall away back to…_

She shifts against him, eyes clouded like wild honey flickering for a moment into wakefulness; a shaft of brilliance against the bruised mask of her face.

 

Her face is still clouded with ghosts, still the pale mask rising out of the darkness as he had handed her the dirk, blood smeared across his hand, the lines and bends blurred by the dark red jewels of another man’s blood.

 

‘Jamie…’

 

The words fall away into the darkness, lost in translation as he breathes out again; the action pressing painfully against his lungs.

 

He had called her _a bana-mhaigistair_ when he had found her, crashing into the clearing with the rise and fall of Roger Mac’s drum; the blood stained energy blurring the world into a pit of fire and hatred.

 

He had knelt and kissed her face and given her the dirk, clutching her recently released hands, ice cold and trembling between his own.

 

But she was more than that.

 

She was more than just a mistress, she was part of his soul, connected to him by something stronger than either the ring with its’ Highland interlace pattern that still gripped her middle finger, or blood or flesh or bone.

 

She was part of his soul and despite everything, despite the high, strange thread that her voice had been in the kitchen, he knows that she is damaged. The fire that clings to her, that has brought him through so much, is spluttering, stuttering, guttering against the darkness that he knows all too well is trying its’ best to smother the light.

 

‘ _I have been raped,’ he had told her, the shards of memory rising sharp and jagged, flooding the kitchen before he can stop them. The memories that he has worked so hard to supress, but has known, even now, all these years later, that they still laid dormant, dozing under his skin._

_‘I have been raped,’ four words that pulled him back to Wentworth._

_Pulled him back to a room, a chair, a bed._

_Pulled him back to Randall, a leering shadow of a face rising black and steaming through the darkness, a coarse finger trailing down to against his chest, hoarse breath stinking of lavender caught in a sudden moan of agonised ectasy._

_A mallet crashing down in a blaze of unendurable agony, the sound of bones splintering against skin mingled in a sudden roar ripped from his throat._

_The weight of Randall’s palm caressing his cheek; a soft, low moan rumbling in burning pleasure in the depths of the wolf’s throat._

Shards of memory and he is lost to her, falling into the darkness plagued by his own demons.

 

Memories that had reared their heads again as he had reached to touch her, wanting to feel the skin, bruised and tender against his own and seen the panic rise in her eyes, the desperate need to flinch burning against his touch.

 

He reaches for her in the quiet and she reaches back, turning over with a groan, their hearts suddenly yearning for the other.

 

His fingers catch her hair, wisps and strands of brown floating against his fingers, his lips reaching for them, desperate to soothe out all her hurts.

 

_‘You are blood of my blood and bone of my bone, mon nighean don. Mo Sorcha.  As long we both shall live.’_

It is a whispered promise, but one that he feels with all his heart, the words rising in a pulsing throb of tenderness against his heart.

 

One that he had said again and again as he had taken inventory of her bruised and battered face in the candlelight, watching the soft brown eyes that he loves so well swim with a pain that he wishes she did not have to feel.

 

‘ _I can bear pain myself’,_ he had told her once, long ago, holding her; the weight of her head buried deep against his chest as he held her after the witch trial _._

_‘But I couldna bear yours. That would take more strength than I have.’_

Even now, all these years later, with the ghosts of the people that they had been hovering in the shadows, the words still hold true.

 

But bear it he must.

 

He owes her that much and more besides as she shifts against him; a small, strangled cry rising and dying against her lips.

 

‘I’m here,’ the words are rough and hoarse with exhaustion, but she relaxes as she hears them; the memories of all the times she had said the same to him; holding him and rocking him back from his nightmares rising between them. Back to her, back to the thread that connected them through love and blood and skin.

 

‘I’m here _mon nighean don._ I’m here. I’m here and I’m not going away.’

* * *

 

  _ **Fin**_

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to read and review! Comments, questions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


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